HASHEM, Not Doctors, Calls the Shots!

Counteracting A Negative Medical Prognosis

From Kindness: Making a Difference in People's Lives: Formulas, stories, and insights
By Zelig Pliskin
Printed with Permission of Shaar Press
I heard these stories from my students:

I was told that I had only a few days left to live. That was over forty years ago.

Several doctors told me that we would be unable to have children. Fortunately they were wrong.

My doctor told me that I had only one chance in five hundred of overcoming my illness. I think he was being generous by giving me one chance. I used hope and laughter and spent the rest of my life encouraging others to believe in their ability to recover just as I did.

Doctors are humans. And all humans make errors. Those who feel they never make errors are guilty of an extreme error. Doctors save lives and heal. But they are fallible. Doctors have a mandate to heal, not to give up. Many doctors respect this mandate. Some don't. They can mean well and in their minds don't want to give false hopes. But a pessimistic prognosis can create discouragement. It is incumbent upon doctors to qualify a negative prognosis. They do have a responsibility to tell someone that a situation is serious and proper medical treatment is warranted. But it is crucial for them to be aware of instances when people did recover even though it might have appeared to be unlikely. The greater a doctor's knowledge of exceptions to the standard, the greater his ability to soften a dire pronouncement.

Hearing and reading about stories of people who have recovered from life-threatening illnesses will supply you with ammunition to fight depressing medical statements. We need to live in reality. But it is a major error to prematurely feel that all hope is lost when there is a valid basis for that hope.

Medical miracles do happen. People who were not given a chance for recovery have recovered. Even those who do not fully recover often live many more fruitful years than an original prognosis predicted.

Recovery and healing can happen with serious medical conditions. All the more so with psychological and psychiatric disorders. Being told, "Your problem is deep-seated and you'll never live a happy life," can create a self-fulfilling prophecy that can greatly hinder someone's ability to regain emotional health. Give hope and encouragement when someone has been told, "Nothing can be done."

"Nothing can be done," really means, "At the present with my limited knowledge and abilities I don't know what I can do to help." It doesn't mean that no one else can help. And it doesn't mean that this very person won't be able to help in the future. And it doesn't mean that there won't be spontaneous remission.

A helpful sentence is, "You never know."

• "You never know. Perhaps the situation is better than you think."
• "You never know. You might recover and heal."
• "You never know all the good you can still experience."
• "You never know how spiritually elevated you can become by coping with this situation."